The energy in Hurricane Irma.

Hurricane Irma was enormous, the eye was up to 40 miles in diameter, the hurricane center core was up to 140 miles wide, tropical storm winds reached 150 miles from the center, it rained up to 200 miles from the center and clouds covered the skies up to 350 miles from the center. The eye of the hurricane covered over 1000 square miles, hurricane winds covered 15,000 square miles, tropical storm winds covered up to 70,000 square miles, rains stretched out over 125,000 square miles and clouds affected up to 400,000 square miles.

A Hurricane takes energy from the ocean and releases it in the form of rain, wind and radiation into space. We measure hurricanes in categories dependent on the sustainable winds, but the wind energy is so much less than water energy. Nowhere was that more evident than in the case of hurricane Harvey, where nearly all the damage was from rain.

Hurricane Irma was different. It had landfalls in the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane. At landfall Irma generated about 8 million Megawatts of wind energy or more than twice as much as world wide electrical energy produced, and Irma made landfall on small islands in the Caribbean, on Cuba, the Florida Keys, near Naples, Florida and once more north of Tampa.

The first landfall was on the little island of Barbuda,size 62 square miles. It has a population of 8000, the power of Irma killed one of the inhabitants and destroyed 90 percent of the buildings on the island. Irma did this using about one tenth of one percent of its wind energy! The Virgin Islands also got a direct hit and a dozen deaths occurred in the rest of the Caribbean.

The situation i Cuba was much different. Irma entered Cuba with 155 mph winds, grazed the coastal archipelago, slowed down to 6 mph forward progress, briefly made landfall on the mainland and exited with 130 mph winds. This 72 hour Cuban visit claimed (so far) 10 lives in Cuba, Cuba absorbed maybe 30 percent of the wind energy from Irma, about 2.5 million Megawatts of wind energy during 72 hours, or about 180 million MWh, or about nine times more than the yearly power consumption in Cuba.

This is a lot of energy, but it is dwarfed by the energy released in the condensation of the water vapor in the form of rain. This is about 800 million Megawatts, and continued in the case of Irma for 11 days, nearly all of it returning to the ocean from which it was fed. This is about 500 times the worldwide electrical energy produced, and since lasted 11 days, that is the equivalent of about 15 years of worldwide electrical production. Priced at 6 cents per kilowatt-hour this comes to about 12 trillion dollars worth of electricity if it could be harnessed, but instead it is destructive in its path, but usually beneficial in its periphery, since many of the islands it passes over depends on the rain from the hurricanes for its supply of fresh water.

But that is not the only cooling Irma provided. When the Sun shines over water 90 percent of all the sun’s energy is absorbed. The hurricane cloud was large, up to 700 miles in diameter or 400,000 square miles. The sun’s rays has an incoming energy of about 400 Watts per square meter, and the clouds reflect about 90 percent of the sun’s rays back into space rather than getting absorbed in the ocean or over land. The cooling effect of the hurricane Irma from clouds was about 200 million megawatts during peak daytime, or about 1,200 million mWhours. This alone is more than sixty times the worldwide electricity production.

Of course this all pales in comparison when one realizes the sun reaches us with 1,500 trillion Megawatt-hours of solar energy per day, so we are still talking of less than one millionth of the energy we receive from the sun.

Scientists have published strong evidence that the warming climate is making heat waves more frequent and intense. It is also causing heavier rainstorms, and coastal flooding is getting worse as the oceans rise because of human emissions. Global warming has intensified droughts in regions like the Middle East, and it may have strengthened the drought in California.

In many other cases, though, the linkage to global warming for particular trends is uncertain or disputed. That is partly from a lack of good historical weather data, but it is also scientifically unclear how certain types of events may be influenced by the changing climate.

Another factor: While the climate is changing, people’s perceptions may be changing faster. The Internet has made us all more aware of weather disasters in distant places. On social media, people have a tendency to attribute virtually any disaster to climate change, but in many cases there is no scientific support for doing so.

My answer to Question 11. Is crazy weather tied to climate change?

The tornadoes are declining. More CO2 means less temperature gradients causing fewer tornadoes.

The Polar Bears will do quite well, their numbers have more than doubled in the last 50 years.

The temperature regulator of the earth is working quite well, and the increase in temperature at the poles is welcome as it lessens the temperature gradient between the tropics and the polar regions, which in turn reduces the severity of storms, and tornadoes, since they are mostly generated by temperature differences and the different density of warm, humid and dry, cold air.

Will droughts increase? The data does not indicate so:

What about ocean acidification? As CO2 increases, a lot of it will be absorbed in the oceans, thereby making the oceans more acid. This is true, but CO2 is a very mild acid and has a minor acidic influence. Of much more importance is acid rain. At one time in the 70’s some lakes in Norway had a Ph. of about 4.5, enough to kill most trout fishes. In Sweden it was said they fertilized their rivers and lakes four times as much as tilled soil, leading to significant acidification of both the Baltic and the North Sea. The Baltic Sea is still in danger of total oxygen depletion. By comparison to these dangers CO2 in the ocean is only a very minor disturbance. Clean the rivers and lakes first!

Oh, and one more thing. The sea level rise is a natural phenomenon of tectonic plate movements, the Atlantic Ridge is rising and the Eastern Seaboard is sinking. These movements will continue to occur regardless of the climate.

John Kerry said in Indonesia the other day: “The science is unequivocal, and those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand. We don’t have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society. And in a sense, climate change can now be considered another weapon of mass destruction, perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction. “

The opposite is true, increased levels of CO2 is a major vehicle of wealth distribution. (Green is increased plant growth, red is decreased, 1982 – 2010)

The increase in temperature is manageable and even desirable in most regions of the world, desert areas and areas prone to flooding being the exception.

In conclusion:

CO2 is a clean gas, necessary for life, and an increase in the amount of CO2 is highly desirable.

The very minor increase in temperature is on balance beneficial, since it leads to a less violent climate, with fewer storms, hurricanes and tornadoes.

The increase in CO2 makes us able to feed another 2 billion people on earth, not to mention additional wildlife.

Ocean acidification is a problem, not so much from CO2, but from sulfuric acid, nitrates and other pollutants. The major offender: China.

The increase in precipitation is beneficial, except in areas already prone to flooding. It is especially welcome in arid areas. The chart below show no increase in heavy rains as CO2 increases.

On the other hand the great conservationist SARAH PALIN once said: “We’ve got to remind Americans that the effort has got to be even greater today toward conservation because these finite resources that we’re dealing with obviously – once oil is gone it’s gone, once gas is gone, it’s gone. And I think our nation has really become kind of spoiled in that arena.”[Fox News, Hannity’s America, 10/12/08]

Coal, oil, peat, wood and natural gas are our best raw material to sustain life as we know it, and are far to valuable to waste on electricity production, so let us switch electricity production to thorium based nuclear energy

(2) The number of days since a major hurricane hit the U.S. mainland is at a record, 2523 days (and counting) since hurricane Wilma hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. This is the longest stretch since hurricane tracking begun.

(3) This point is controversial. According to IPCC there is a positive feedback between greenhouse gases and temperature increase. This assumption is proven false by the absence of global temperature increase since 2001.

The opposite argument is true. There is a strong negative feedback between increasing CO2 and temperature, so the net effect is that the tropic experience almost no temperature increase, the Northern Hemisphere an increase of 0.4 degrees, and the Southern Hemisphere an increase of about 0.2 degree Celsius for a doubling of the CO2 concentration. This increase is concentrated mostly around the poles causing less of a temperature gradient between the poles and the equator, which give the storms less energy to sustain them.

Total hurricane energy is on a decline since the active years 2005-2006. 2012 is no exception with only one major hurricane (for 12 hours) way out in the Atlantic.

(4) There is a strong correlation between CO2 concentration and crop yields, with a 30 to 70 % increase for a doubling of CO2.

(5) Assuming a 50% average increase in yield the world can feed two billion more mouths with a doubling in CO2.

(6) In addition, when CO2 increases the plants use photosynthesis more efficiently, needing less water to produce a crop making even arid areas able to yield a crop.